Analyzing the “Photographic Evidence” of the Nanking Massacre

Photo R“Someone offering incense to a prisoner on public display (Beijing, 1924).” ZusetsuChūgoku kokukei-shi, p. 79.(8) Poor childrenThe caption of Photo 106, which appears in Chapter 2 of RON-YY, reads “Tryingdesperately to revive their dead children.” Movies like “Battle of China” and “Zhongguozhi Shuhou” [Roar of China] also feature this photo clip to illustrate the conduct of theJapanese troops after the fall of Nanking.The original version of this photograph, however, appeared in the January 10,1938, issue of Life with a different viewpoint and caption. In the original, one can see auniformed man standing to the left of an old man holding a child. Judging from the shapeof the cap worn by that uniformed man, he was most likely not a Japanese soldier, but aChinese man. Life captioned the photograph, which recorded an event on December 6,1937 as “A civilian in Nanking, in a state of extreme grief, carried his dying son, woundedby a Japanese bomb splinter.” The presence of such a small children close to the frontline,as indicated by the sandbags, was quite unnatural, however. Thus, Life’s caption itselfmay not be accurate. But the important fact here is that someone took this photograph onDecember 6. Accordingly, this cannot constitute photographic evidence of the Japanese176